Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,

in this thread I want to rate and discuss the different elementalist traits and trait lines. Some are really strong in my opinion while others are basically useless. Maybe this helps new elementalist players to understand which traits they should pick and encourages advanced elementalist players to discuss this topic.

This is how I rate the different traits and trait lines:

5 = Strong for all elementalist builds. Really nice to have. Essential for a lot of builds.
4 = Strong for most builds. Nice addition for any build. Sometimes essential.
3 = Good for most builds. Not essential for common builds.
2 = Mediocre trait or trait line. I would recommend a higher rated trait or trait line.
1 = Useless trait or trait line. I would only pick this trait for fun or a very special build.

Here are the different traits and trait lines:

Fire Magic

Fire Magic is a trait line of the elementalist that focuses on use of fire magic and conjured weapons.
Per point:
Power +10
Condition Duration +1%

• Rating: 3
• Power and Condition Duration are always nice to have. The majority of your power comes from Might and your gear which just makes this a good addition. The Condition Duration is strong for condition builds but instead of the the fire trait line I prefer the earth trait line which gives you Condition Damage and traits which usually fit the build better.

Minor:

Flame Barrier
You have a chance to cause burning whenever a foe attacks you in melee. Only triggers when attuned to fire.

• Rating: 2
• A lot of eles aren’t in melee range and if they are they don’t want to be hit. Besides that you are constantly switching between attunements which makes this trait even less effective.

Sunspot
Inflict damage at your location when you attune to fire.

• Rating: 2
• Extra damage is never bad but in this case the damage is so low you won’t even recognize it. Disappointing for 15 points.

Burning Rage
Deal more damage to burning foes.

• Rating: 4
• Decent damage boost after the buff. Since most builds apply Burning in some way this traits is always good.

Major:
Adept:

Lava Tomb
Create a Lava Font when downed. Deal more damage while downed.

• Rating: 2
• If you are Downed this helps you to get back in the fight without your team. You usually have a team though which means this trait is only mediocre.

Conjurer
Conjured weapons have more charges.

• Rating: 3
• Good trait if you use Conjured weapons.

Ember’s Might
Burns you apply last longer.

• Rating: 3
• Good for most builds, extremely good for Condition builds. Underrated trait in my opinion.

Spell Slinger
Cantrips grant you might when used.

• Rating: 3
• Good damage boost if you use Cantrips.

Burning Precision
Critical hits have a chance to cause burning.

• Rating: 2
• If you have a high Critical Chance this trait can be ok but keep in mind it is only a 1 second Burning. If you really want the Burning damage there are better ways.

Internal Fire
Deal more damage while attuned to fire.

• Rating: 3
• If you use fire skills like Meteor Shower a lot this trait is a good choice. Since fire is one of the major damage attunements this trait is never bad.

Master:

Pyromancer’s Alacrity
Reduces recharge on all fire weapon skills.

• Rating: 3
• Adds a lot to your damage output because the fire attunement is one of your main damage sources.

Burning Fire
Use Cleansing Fire automatically when you have a number of conditions on you.

• Rating: 3
• Good trait if your enemies apply a lot of Conditions.

Fire’s Embrace
When you activate a signet, you gain a fire shield.

• Rating: 3
• Nice for signet builds.

One with Fire
Flame Barrier’s chance to burn foes goes up the longer you are attuned to fire.

• Rating: 2
• Since Flame Barrier is close to useless I would never pick this trait.

Grandmaster:

Persisting Flames
Blast finishers you execute on fire fields give fury. Fire fields last longer.

• Rating: 4
• Decent before the buff, even better now. The additional Duration combined with Fury greatly increase the damage output and synergize with other parts of many builds.

Pyromancer’s Puissance
Each fire spell you cast grants you might.

• Rating: 4
• More Might means more damage. If you focus on the Fire Attunement for your damage output this trait can help a lot. The more you switch between Attunements the less this trait is effective.

Air Magic
Air Magic is a trait line of the elementalist that focuses on use of air magic and additionally glyphs, movement speed, and spike damage.
Per point:
Precision +10
Critical Damage +1%

• Rating: 3
• Strong for high DPS builds. If you want to play a more supportive role I would not recommend this trait line.

Minor:

Zephyr’s Speed
Move faster while attuned to air.

• Rating: 1
• Useless trait since you have perma Swiftness, Signet of Air or other Speed buffs. Besides that speed buffs don’t stack. Really disappointing trait.

Electric Discharge
Strike your target with a bolt of lightning when attuning to air.

• Rating: 3
• Decent damage boost.

Weak Spot
Chance to cause vulnerability on critical hits.

• Rating: 3
• Nice addition to high Critical Chance builds. Keep in mind it is only 1 stack for 5 seconds.

Major:
Adept:

Zephyr’s Boon
Auras grant fury and swiftness when applied.

• Rating: 4
• Strong for Aura builds, ok for other builds. Powerful Aura will cause Zephyr’s Boon to apply fury and swiftness to allies too which means this trait can be extremly useful.

Zephyr’s Focus
Your endurance regenerates faster while channeling skills.

• Rating: 2
• Ok if you use a lot of channeling skills. There are better traits though.

Quick Glyphs
Reduces recharge on glyphs.

• Rating: 3
• Good for Glyph builds.

One with Air
Gain superspeed when attuning to air.

• Rating: 2
• Mediocre trait since the Duration is really short.

Soothing Winds
Gain healing based on your precision.

• Rating: 3
• Good if you have ridiculous amounts of precision.

Bolt to the Heart
Deal more damage when your foe’s health drops below the threshold.

• Rating: 4
• Huge damage boost. Really strong for high DPS builds and good for any other build. This trait is one of my 10 point recommendations.

Master:

Arcane Lightning
Gain more critical-hit damage for a short time when you use an arcane skill. Does not stack.

• Rating: 3
• Strong for high critical-hit damage builds with Arcane skills.

Inscription
Grants a boon associated with your current attunement when you cast a glyph.

• Rating: 3
• Good for Glyph builds.

Aeromancer’s Alacrity
Reduces recharge on all your air weapon skills.

• Rating: 3
• Good for every build.

Air Training
Deal more damage while attuned to air.

• Rating: 3
• Really good for burst builds, decent for every other build.

Grandmaster:

Tempest Defense
Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled (fear, stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, launch, float, or sink). Deal more damage to stunned or knocked-down foes.

• Rating: 4
• Huge damage and survivability boost. Combining it with Grounded and reducing the ICD really helped this trait.

Fresh Air
Recharge Air Attunement on a critical hit.

• Rating: 4
• Strong for burst builds since you can use high damage skills more often.

Earth Magic
Earth Magic is a trait line of the elementalist that focuses on use of earth magic, bleeds, defense, and signets.
Per point:
Toughness +10
Condition Damage +10

• Rating: 3
• Toughness and Condition Damage are always useful. No matter which build you play this always improves your survivability and damage.

Minor:

Stone Flesh
Gain toughness while attuned to earth.

• Rating: 3
• Good trait although it’s only active while attuned to earth.

Earthen Blast
Damage foes and cripple them for 3 seconds when attuning to earth.

• Rating: 3
• Underrated trait in my opinion. The damage is really low but the Cripple helps a lot.

Enduring Damage
Deal more damage when your endurance is full.

• Rating: 4
• Nice addition to any build. The synergy between Vigor and this trait make it really useful.

Major:
Adept:

Obsidian Focus
Gain toughness while using a channeled skill.

• Rating: 3
• Only works if you use channeling skills but the Toughness bonus is huge.

Signet Mastery
Reduces recharge on signets.

• Rating: 3
• Good for Signet builds.

Earth’s Embrace
Gain Armor of Earth whenever your health drops below the threshold.

• Rating: 4
• Really good trait. The ICD is ok for the buffs this trait offers. If you have 10 points left and you don’t know which trait you want this one would be one of my recommendations.

Serrated Stones
Bleeds you apply last longer; deal more damage to bleeding foes.

• Rating: 4
• Nice damage boost. Since bleeding usually lasts longer than burning this trait also helps other Attunements. Especially good for Condition builds.

Elemental Shielding
Gain protection when applying an aura to yourself or an ally.

• Rating: 3
• Strong for Aura builds, ok for other builds. Also synergises well with Powerful Aura.

Stone Splinters
Deal more damage when you are within a range of 600 of your target.

• Rating: 4
• Huge damage boost for all Attunements. Only mediocre if you use a staff.

Master:

Strength of Stone
Gain condition damage based on your toughness.

• Rating: 4
• Great for Condition builds since they usually have a lot of Toughness.

Rock Solid
Grant stability to nearby allies when attuning to earth.

• Rating: 4
• Really good choice for any build. Great if you use many channeled skills or your enemy has a lot of CC.

Geomancer’s Freedom
You recover from crippled, immobilized, and chilled faster.

• Rating: 2
• We already have enough Condition removal. Can be useful sometimes.

Geomancer’s Alacrity
Reduces recharge on all earth weapon skills.

• Rating: 3
• Decent damage and survivability boost.

Grandmaster:

Diamond Skin
Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold.

• Rating: 4
• Very situational. Usually either overpowered or useless.

Written in Stone
Maintain the passive effects of signets when you activate them.

• Rating: 4
• Must-have for Signet builds.

Water Magic
Water Magic is a trait line of the elementalist that focuses on use of water magic and defensive tactics, as well as exploiting Vulnerability on foes.
Per point:
Vitality +10
Healing Power +10

• Rating: 4
• Really nice stat bonuses. Since elementalists don’t have a lot of HP this really helps. The additional Healing Power also makes it easier to stay alive.

Minor:

Soothing Mist
Regenerate health while attuned to water.

• Rating: 4
• Strong minor trait. It heals you and your allies. More Healing Power makes this trait even better.

Healing Ripple
Heal nearby allies when attuning to water.

• Rating: 5
• Huge heal which is even better the more Healing Power you have. One of the best minor traits for an elementalist.

Bountiful Power
Deal more damage for each boon on you.

• Rating: 3
• Not as good after the nerf but still decent.

Major:
Adept:

Arcane Abatement
Take less damage from falling. Create a spell when you take falling damage, based on your attunement.
Fire: Ring of Fire
Water: Healing Wave
Air: Static Field
Earth: Earthquake

• Rating: 2
• Ok for WvW, useless for PvE or PvP.

Shard of Ice
Arcane and signet skills cause vulnerability when activated.

• Rating: 3
• Nice damage boost if you use arcane skills or signets.

Cantrip Mastery
Reduces recharge on cantrips.

• Rating: 3
• Good for Cantrip builds.

Piercing Shards
While attuned to water, your spells deal more damage to vulnerable foes.

• Rating: 3
• Situational, strong damage boost. Nice synergy with conjured weapons.

Soothing Wave
Gain regeneration when critically hit.

• Rating: 3
• Activates quite often but the Duration is short.

Vital Striking
Deal extra damage when your health is above the threshold.

• Rating: 3
• Nice damage boost if you want to start a fight with a huge burst or if you are able to keep your HP > 90%. Works with all Attunements.

Master:

Stop Drop and Roll
Dodge rolling removes burning and chilled.

• Rating: 2
• Ok against condition builds. Besides that I don’t see any reason why you should use this trait.

Aquamancer’s Alacrity
Reduces recharge on all water weapon skills.

• Rating: 3
• Good survivability boost. Really good for staff builds in WvW.

Soothing Disruption
Cantrips grant you regeneration and vigor.

• Rating: 4
• Great for Cantrip builds. Synergizes well with Cleansing Water and Evasive Arcana.

Cleansing Wave
Remove a condition from you and your allies when attuning to water.

• Rating: 4
• Really good against Condition builds. Also helps your allies.

Grandmaster:

Cleansing Water
Remove a condition when granting regeneration to yourself or an ally.

• Rating: 5
• This is one of the best major traits for an elementalist even after the PvP nerf. Since you will grant regeneration to yourself or an ally quite often this trait will remove a condition every single time. Keep in mind this includes any regeneration you grant not only regeneration granted by skills .If you have problems with conditons use this trait.

Powerful Aura
Auras are applied to nearby allies.

• Rating: 4
• Must-have for Aura builds and good for any other build. Your team will love you for this trait.

Arcana
Arcana is a trait line of the elementalist that focuses on general improvements, arcane utility skills and the switching of attunements.
Per point:
Boon Duration +1%
Attunement Recharge Rate +1%

• Rating: 4
• Good trait line when it comes to stats. Boons are one of the major advantages elementalists have over any other profession and the additional Boon Duration will help you to maintain them. The Attunement Recharge Rate buffs your support abilites, damage and survivability. Without it you would have to wait a lot during a fight instead of using your skills. Slightly less important stats after the Attunement Recharge Rate Reduction though.

Minor:

Arcane Fury
Gain fury when you switch attunements.

• Rating: 4
• Fury increases your damage output a lot.

Lingering Elements
Attunement bonuses linger after leaving that attunement.

• Rating: 4
• Depending on which Attunement bonuses you have this can help a lot or just a little bit. Either way this trait is always useful.

Arcane Precision
Skills have a chance to apply a condition on critical hits.

• Rating: 2
• Disappointing trait. The chance is pretty low and a lot of builds are not focused on critical hits. Not worth 25 points.

Major:
Adept:

Arcane Mastery
Reduces recharge on arcane skills.

• Rating: 3
• Nice if you use arcane skills.

Renewing Stamina
Gain vigor when you deliver a critical hit.

• Rating: 5
• This trait is one of the reasons why a lot of elementalists have perma vigor. It adds a lot to your survivability and synergizes well with a lot of traits.

Final Shielding
Create an Arcane Shield when your health drops below the threshold.

• Rating: 3
• Decent survivability boost.

Vigorous Scepter
Endurance recharges faster while wielding a scepter.

• Rating: 3
• Good trait although Renewing Stamina is better.

Blasting Staff
Area attacks with staff are larger.

• Rating: 4
• Must-have for any staff build. It gives you and your group more damage and survivability.

Windborne Dagger
Move faster for each dagger that you wield.

• Rating: 2
• Basically useless since it doesn’t stack with other passive movement speed effects.

Master:

Arcane Retribution
Gain Arcane Power when your health drops below the threshold.

• Rating: 3
• Nice damage boost although the ICD is pretty long.

Elemental Attunement
When attuning to an element, you and all nearby allies gain a boon.

• Rating: 5
• Really good trait even after the nerf. Synergizes well with other traits and gear.

Arcane Resurrection
You have increased revive speed. When you revive an ally, you and the revived ally gain an aura based on your attunement.

• Rating: 2
• The Auras are nice but the increased revive speed doesn’t really help. Since you usually don’t revive too often I wouldn’t use this trait.

Arcane Energy
Arcane and signet skills restore endurance when used.

• Rating: 3
  Can be nice if you need more endurance fast and use arcane or signet skills. I prefer Renewing Stamina though.

Grandmaster:

Evasive Arcana
Create an attunement-based spell at the end of your dodge. Fire: Flame Burst. Water: Cleansing Wave. Air: Blinding Flash. Earth: Churning Earth.

• Rating: 5
• Really strong trait even after all the nerfs. Useful for any build and essential for a lot of them. Synergizes well with a lot of other traits like Renewing Stamina.

Elemental Surge
Based on your current attunement, arcane skills cause a condition to foes that they hit.

• Rating: 4
• Useful if you use arcane skills. Adds damage and utility.

This is my current rating for the elementalist traits. If you think something is wrong with the rating or just want to give me some feedback feel free to leave a comment! I will keep editing this thread to keep it up to date.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day.

Update notes:

• 13/03/16:
  - layout update
  - removed 2 ratings for 1 trait
  - edited ratings
  - edited descriptions
  - added some synergies

• 13/03/26:
  - Soothing Disruption description and rating edited

• 14/01/11
  - included trait changes and new traits
  - edited ratings
  - edited descriptions
  - added some synergies

Nice idea. Haven’t read it all yet but some kind of editing to your list would be nice.
like

[A-XI] Evasive Arcana
Create an attunement-based spell at the end of your dodge. Each spell can be triggered once every 10 seconds.
Fire: Flame Burst. Water: Cleansing Wave. Air: Blinding Flash. Earth: Churning Earth.

• Rating: 5
• Really strong trait and useful for any build. Essential for a lot of builds. If you ever used this trait you will love it. Synergizes well with a lot of other traits.

[A-XII] Elemental Surge
Based on attunement, arcane skills cause:
Fire: burning for 5 seconds. Water: chilled for 3 seconds. Air: blindness for 5 seconds. Earth: immobilized for 1 second

• Rating: 2
• Useful if you use arcane skills. It adds damage and utility. Useless if you don’t use any arcane skills.

Also don’t use 2 ratings on the same trait. It should be clear that a trait that only works on staff is crap if you use daggers. Just write the rating for staff and mention the rest in the description. And don’t just write things like “usefull if you use arcane spells, useless if not” – instead write something like “for grandmaster-trait the conditions added are kind of weak and compared to evasive arcana this is completley useless unless you have 3 Arcane spells as utility and maybe even specced for further proccs in the arcane-traitline” Here you could also mention synergies with other traits (like in that case Arcane-III and -IV)

All Trait Lines are great, and it really depends on your playstyle so I’m just inputting some Majors.

Best Fire Majors: Internal Fire, Pyromancer’s Alacrity, Pyromancer’s Puissance.
Good Fire Majors: Ember’s Might, Conjurer, Persisting Flames.
- The best ones provide the highest damage increase, while the good ones a bit less. Conjurer is good since there’s always uses (and most of the time, great uses) for the Conjured Weapons, and it’s especially awesome with Fiery Greatsword.

Best Air Majors: Bolt to the Heart, Aeromancer’s Alacrity.
Good Air Majors: Zephyr’s Boon, Quick Glyphs, Air Training, Tempest Defense.
- Zephyr’s Boon would be in the “Best” if all weapons had at least 2 auras to make a great use of it, but unfortunately only D/D really benefits from it, and Air doesn’t have always have a high damage (Staff) to make Air Training really worth it.

Best Earth Majors: Earth’s Embrace, Geomancer’s Alacrity.
Good Earth Majors: Signet Mastery, Written in Stone, Salt Stone, Stone Splinters.
- Signets are only really useful if you’re using Written in Stone, and Salt Stone and Stone Splinters are good if you’re either PvEing or meleeing, but they’re good damage increases that doesn’t depend on your attunement.

Best Water Majors: Aquamancer’s Alacrity, Cleansing Water, Cleansing Water
Good Water Majors: Vital Striking, Cantrip Mastery, Soothing Disruption, Powerful Aura
- Soothing Disruption might be regarded as Best but it’s subjective since you get only 6~ or so seconds from Cantrips that usually have long cooldowns, and if used preemptively, the boon doesn’t make much of a difference.

Best Arcana Majors: Renewing Stamina, Elemental Attunement, Final Shielding, Evasive Arcana.
Good Arcana Majors: Blasting Staff, Elemental Surge, Arcane Mastery.
- Meh.

The Best ones will work in pretty much any build and weapon, and they’re incredibly great in numbers/effects. The good ones can be made to work with little effort or a small tweak with utilities/builds, but they’re either situational (depending on utilities) or their effect isn’t as great as the Best ones.
Any other Major not listed is either weak or have way too much variables to work, such as Air’s Grounded – 20% more damage to knocked down and stunned foes – although it’s a great damage increase, you don’t get to attack too many people knocked down or stunned, not as often as you get to attack someone with less than 33% health (Bolt to the Heart).

Holy tl;dr .

Ele traits are probably the saddest in the entire game. We only have about 5 really good ones that you see in 90% of serious builds. Everything else is either situational, mediocre, or has a completely negligible effect.

Every time I see how many “+5/10% damage while X” traits there are versus the interesting traits that other professions get, I cry inside.

You are far too generous on some of your scores. You gave the 5 point fire trait and its sister trait scores of 2, yet you said yourself that “One with Fire” is useless (a correct assumption).

Wow, very nice summary.

I find fire minor traits are just a waste of points. Flame barrier? With ele natural squishiness, I doubt anyone wants to get attacked intentionally. Sunspot is very situational and we get the same trait as Burning Rage in adept major slot, wasting a potential for synergy.

My wishlist is Anet to add +field duration (not only fire) and to modify those +movement speed traits. After the buff on signet of air, none of these trait are that useful anymore.

There are some mishaps there. I will only pick one of them out, since I am lazy.

Strength of Stone
Deal 10% more damage while attuned to earth.
3
As good as Internal Fire. Worse for burst builds, better for Condition Damage builds.

It doesn’t affect condition builds, but burst ones only.

+1’d everything. Great summary! Keep it up!

Thanks for your feedback.

I will try to edit it this weekend if I have enough time. Feel free to correct me if you think the rating is wrong and also keep adding more synergys if some are missing!

There’s also the stacking of traits, that affects the rating. For example, on their own, Soothing Disruption and Cleansing Water are decent, but combined they’re awesome.

Rating trait individually is difficult. Some build work totally around 1 trait. On the other builds, that same trait could be worthless. Even if you include two score it is still hard to justify the usefulness of each trait. Well some is blatantly bad/good. But a lot of traits has potential and we don’t know yet xD

Indeed. Kinda more or less my point.

Some of the deep fire/earth traits are actually pretty awesome but the rest of the tree sucks/you depend on that single attunement so nobody goes into them. Pyromancer’s Puissance is super for getting tons of might stacks but you have to stay in fire so it is a bit troublesome to use.

Stability on attunement to earth, especially with boon duration in Arcane tree is nice too (especially in WvW), but if you put so many points into earth you’ll probably already be in earth attunement when you need the stability so it is awkward to use.

So while the traits may be good/bad by themselves it is also important to look at the big picture (which is why going deep into water is so popular, because cantrips work regardless of your current attunement).

Something important to note with the 30 point water trait that removes conditions on regen, is that it triggers on all regeneration. Even regen traited from cantrip usage.

@ThiBash.5634 and @Vanillea.5764

I know what you mean but there is no other way than rating them individually. The 5 and 4 rating already says they are essential for a lot of builds.

Besides that I try to mention the synergies between different traits but I simply don’t have the time to add more right now. If you think some of them are missing feel free to let me know because it would help me a lot.

The two scores are mainly for traits which work in certain circumstances. Like Gorni.1764 said it doesn’t really make sense to mention it again so I might edit this part.

@Sunflowers.1729

I will add the cantrips part to the water trait line (totally forgot to mention it there).
I know about the 30 point water trait. I will add it to the synergy part so it is more clear.

Danicco.3568:

Best Air Majors: Bolt to the Heart, Aeromancer’s Alacrity.
Good Air Majors: Zephyr’s Boon, Quick Glyphs, Air Training, Tempest Defense.
- Zephyr’s Boon would be in the “Best” if all weapons had at least 2 auras to make a great use of it, but unfortunately only D/D really benefits from it, and Air doesn’t have always have a high damage (Staff) to make Air Training really worth it.

Zephyr’s Boon comes into it’s own when using a signet build, and 20 points in Fire (Fire’s Embrace).

Something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQFAGIAIPaxkSCKEABRhHKFmB;TsA5TCnkOpeS5EVXGvEeZrx1lsGA

Basically every time you use a signet (and you can have 4 equipped, so near permanent uptime), it grants a fiery shield which counts as an aura! You gain/give fury and swiftness to the entire group, and cause vulnerability stacks as well for even more damage. If you are more of a solo player, you could swap out the shared aura trait (Powerful Aura), and take 10 points in Earth for Elemental Shielding (a few seconds of protection) which isn’t much, but if you add in boon duration runes, (2x Water + 2 x Monk = +30% duration) and boon duration food, you could take the spare points taken from water and max out arcane for the full +30% boon duration as well, making it much more worthwhile…

If only there were 10 more points available, then you could have both, and make this the ultimate group build

I would really prefer some changeable minor traits, would also be fun on other professions, but on ele i really see a need for it. Something like four alternate for the adept, three additional for the master and two additional for the grandmaster. Think about it, add them not all at once, so no need to stress about it.

Some dumb examples:

Fire expert: Flame Barrier, Sun Spot, Embers Might or Elemental Attuning (Fire)
Fire master: One with fire, Sun Spot burns foes or Burning Rage
Fire Grandmaster: Lingering Fire or Persisting Flames.

Air Expert: Zephyrs Speed, Electric Discharge, Bolt to the Heart or Elemental Attunement (Air)
Air Master: One wit Air, Electric Discharge always crit and +20% against knock downed foes.
Air Grandmaster: Lingering Air and +20% against stunned foes.

Earth Expert: Stone Flesh, Earthen Blast, Elemental Attunment (Earth) and 5% reduced damage, while endurance is full.
Earth Master: One with Earth, Earthern Blast bleeds and Enduring Damage
Earth Grandmaster: Lingering Earth and Rock Solid

Water Expert: Soothing Mist, Cleansing Wave, Elemental Attunment (Water) and Vital Striking.
Water Master: One with Water, Healing Ripple and +Damage with low endurance.
Water Grandmaster: Lingering Water and Bountiful Power.

Arcane Expert: Arcane Fury, Final Shielding, Elemental Attunment (only on self) and Renewing Stamina.
Arcane Master: Arcane Fury effects allies, Arcane Retribution and Renewing Stamina effects allies.
Arcane Grandmaster: Arcane Precision and granting an Aura on Attuning.

Other suggestion: Add one alternate weaponskill for any profession and give the Ele Arcane Skills as alternate weaponskills (these are identical for any attunment), make arcane shield an aura, arcane skills are no utility anymore. Increase the recharge of an attunment and its skill by 1% each point into the traitline (water→watermagic), arcana effects all attuning recharges and arcanr skill recharge.

Hello everyone,

I just updated the guide. If you want to know what changed feel free to check the update notes. Especially the layout should be way better now.

Don’t forget to comment so I can improve the guide!

I like your initiative but it’s just too kitten long to really agree or disagree with any point.

Fire’s problem is that it lacks anything substantial for anything other than Fire. This really limits play style diversity on a class that’s intended to swap to 3 other attunements quite often. It’s also lackluster because Fire lacks any form of CC which means you can’t really stay in Fire in most scenarios (especially PvP). With the trait spec encouraging you to stay in Fire this becomes a non starter.

Air is decent offering a decent number of majors and minors that aren’t completely terrible. That said the final two majors are completely lackluster and feel more like Master level traits.

Earth is frustrating because it’s trying to do too much in a single tree. There’s way too much split between Conditions and Protections but no real way to focus on condition damage due to trait positions. I’d like to see Geomancer’s Alacrity pulled down to Adept (to help synergize with Earth being mostly finishers with combo fields created by other attunements). This would make for a solid (hah hah) protection or condition/signet based offensive builds.

Water is pretty much amazing and it’s why you see it in so many specs. It’s defensively great and gives any build instant survivability through improving our most powerful utility skills (Cantrips) while also providing a large amount of passive healing and condition removal.

Arcane has seen better days when EA was blast finishers galore but all in all the tree still holds up pretty well for a variety of specs.

On a final note I’d really like to see our utilities changed. The biggest problem our Utility suffers is colossal cool downs that just aren’t warranted in most cases. The biggest example of this is our Signets. Signet of Earth’s 3 seconds of Immobilize or Signet of Water’s 4s chill each with a 30s cool down is atrocious. The strength of the effects aren’t worth the huge cool downs associated with them. Signet of Fire has it about right with a 9s Burn on a 20s cool down. Really we should be seeing a 1/4th duration to cool down ratio on most of these especially because without “Written in Stone” you’re giving up the passive entirely. This would also help build diversity as a 30 earth build for Written in Stone wouldn’t seem so bad.

Hello everyone,

just in case you haven’t seen it yet here is an interesting video I found on Youtube:

• Skip to 29:50 for the Elementalist part

The plans on how to improve the ele sound really good to me. They mentioned the current lack in build diversity when it comes to traits and how they want to change a lot of them. I really hope they improve the traits with a 1 or 2 rating.

Because of this video I will wait until the next patch before update the guide again. I think a lot of things will change if they improve some traits and implement the boon hate.

Let me know what you think about the upcoming patch.

i have a ? do u stop earning trait points after u reach leval 80? because im 50% through the game and im a leval 80. and when my xp shows its time 2 leval up i have no trait points… some 1 please help… thank you

you just continue to get Utility-Points (don’t know what they’re called in english) but you will stick to 70 Trait-Points at lvl80.

other question: does anyone know if Lingering Elements works for all traits such as 10% increased dmg in fire/air or 20% more dmg on vulnerable foes in water? Or does it just work with lesser traits such as zephyr’s speed?

@Video: did I hear self-rezz?

@rayzer.4981 like Gorni.1764 said 70 Trait points is the maximum. After that you will only get more Skill points which you can use to buy more skills or some items (e.g. a Bloodstone Shard which you need for your Legendary).

@Gorni.1764 I did not try it myself but this is what I found on the official wiki:

“This extends the length of the attunement after switching to another attunement. For instance, switching from Fire Attunement to Water Attunement will keep the Fire Attunement effect for 5 seconds instead of disappearing immediately. This is relevant to the adept minor traits. "

Maybe this helps.

Besides that I think you can use Piercing Shards with other attunements if you switch to water fast enough. For example if you attack a vulnerable foe with Meteor Shower and switch to water while the meteors keep hitting the damage should be increased.

And yes, you heared right self-rezz.^^ I didn’t try it myself but a friend told me about it. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Fantastic, thoughtful post. I’m bookmarking it. (And changing my build.)

Blackhat.4016:

“This extends the length of the attunement after switching to another attunement. For instance, switching from Fire Attunement to Water Attunement will keep the Fire Attunement effect for 5 seconds instead of disappearing immediately. This is relevant to the adept minor traits. "

Maybe this helps.

Besides that I think you can use Piercing Shards with other attunements if you switch to water fast enough. For example if you attack a vulnerable foe with Meteor Shower and switch to water while the meteors keep hitting the damage should be increased.

And yes, you heared right self-rezz.^^ I didn’t try it myself but a friend told me about it. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Last I checked, the trait didn’t work for everything. Earth → another attunement and I lost the 80 toughness bonus instantly. It still seems to work for water though.

Piercing shards does work if you switch to water. Check out WoodenPotatoes churning earth spiker build to see how you can get some insane crits.

@Sergo.2867 and Adastra.9821
Thanks for your feedback!

Kodiak.3281

Signet of Earth’s 3 seconds of Immobilize or Signet of Water’s 4s chill each with a 30s cool down is atrocious. The strength of the effects aren’t worth the huge cool downs associated with them.

They’re not THAT bad. For starters, if you use them, you’re likely to have 20 points in Fire, which increases their durations a bit. Second, the effects are ranged and don’t have projectiles. That’s pretty strong. Compared to let’s say the Engineer’s net, you can’t see it coming (and it’s a lot harder to dodge).

The main issue with signets I think, is the fact that the Elementalist needs stunbreakers. And that’s something the signet build doesn’t provide.

Read through the entire rating system for traits. Great job.

Some of your descriptions were very useful. Thank you for these.

For Example: your description of why Cleansing Water is so good, because it got me thinking about Runes of Dwayna and how I want them. Maybe I can be as good a support as a warrior with Soldiers. I kind of feel like Elems are not that good at helping others, but easily boon themselves.

The one rating I think you didn’t set high enough is Inscription. This is the lynch pin of anyone who wants to go without many of the other traits. The boons it provides with Healing Glyph really set the stage for traits like Elem Atunement which would seem out of place without it. I would say it deserves 4 for around the clock regen or swiftness.

I am also looking forward to changes and improvements to the trees described by Arena Net.

@ThiBash.5634 and Bastilean.7042
Thanks for your feedback!

I will look at the traits again after the patch tomorrow and will most likely update the guide this weekend if I have enough time!

I also like Inscription but I don’t think the trait is as strong as something like Written in Stone. You also only gain the buffs from time to time because Glyphs have high CDs. Elemental Attunement is stronger in most cases because you get the buffs more often and also grant them to your team. Soothing Disruption is rated to high compared to it though. It should be a 4 instead of 5.

I will look at the trait after the patch though! Maybe I like it better then.

Sadly no changes to the traits but at least they fixed some bugs.

Because of that I will change one rating (Soothing Disruption) today and update the guide whenever there is something new. If you still have any suggestions feel free to comment!

No updates yet but I found something else which might be interesting:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Analysis-of-Cantrips-Eles/first

JonathanSharp.7094:

Very well written Symbolic.

Great write-up. Just so you guys know, we’re trying to bring down the cantrip Ele, while also being careful to let other Ele builds work. We don’t want to just take all Ele’s out of play, but we do need to bring a few things down (traits/skills) in efficacy.

Let’s hope they are doing a good job and give us some more viable builds (even though it sounds like they only want to nerf the cantrips)!

This is another thing i dont understand in GW2.

Traits that give you:
More dmg in downed state.
More hp in downed state.
more.. .. in downed state.

I mean. I dont know about you,
But iam doing everything i can to NOT get downed.

Shouldnt traits make you stronger, so it is harder to get downed in the first place ??

This game seem very weird if you look at it from an outer perspective where you see all at once.
And iam starting to understand why alot of my friends returned to WoW again.

Blackhat.4016:

No updates yet but I found something else which might be interesting:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Analysis-of-Cantrips-Eles/first

JonathanSharp.7094:

Very well written Symbolic.

Great write-up. Just so you guys know, we’re trying to bring down the cantrip Ele, while also being careful to let other Ele builds work. We don’t want to just take all Ele’s out of play, but we do need to bring a few things down (traits/skills) in efficacy.

Let’s hope they are doing a good job and give us some more viable builds (even though it sounds like they only want to nerf the cantrips)!

If they just nerf the cantrips, then I have lost all faith in them.

It should be fairly obvious to anyone with a brain that the so called “cantrip elementalist” (actually just your standard 30Water/30Arcane build) isn’t about cantrips at all. Just look at the build itself. Its water major traits are: “Soothing Disruption”,“Cleansing Wave”,“Cleansing Water”.

Notice anything missing from that list of traits. If you answered “Cantrip Mastery”, then you are a winner. This so called “cantrip elementalist” build doesn’t even bother picking up a reduced cd on cantrips.

And for good reason. The cantrips are fillers to begin with. We just take them because the rest of our utility is horrible (except Signet of Earth and Arcane Shield) and due to Soothing Disruption we can get some extra on demand condition removal via Cleansing Water, as well as some minor vigor. But really, the cantrips themselves are crappy enough that the main spec can’t even be bothered to reduce the cd on them.

@eldain stenlund.4306

Ofc you are right. You should do everything you can to not get downed. The downed state traits help to rally though, especially in a 1v1.

@Wildclaw.6073

I do agree. The other utility skills are pretty bad (there are 1 or 2 exceptions) compared to cantrips or utility skills other professions have. I think cantrips are good skills though. They all offer something useful and break stun. Especially Mist Form is very versatile.

Imo nerfing the cantrips is not the right way to nerf eles. There are other things like certain water/arcana traits and skills they should focus on while also buffing the useless ones.

Wildclaw

And for good reason. The cantrips are fillers to begin with. We just take them because the rest of our utility is horrible (except Signet of Earth and Arcane Shield) and due to Soothing Disruption we can get some extra on demand condition removal via Cleansing Water, as well as some minor vigor. But really, the cantrips themselves are crappy enough that the main spec can’t even be bothered to reduce the cd on them.

Agree and disagree with you. The basic cantrips aren’t all that amazing, true. However, with relatively few trait points you can make them do virtually everything. The only thing that comes close are signets, and you have to pick the clunky 20 points in fire just to make them work. And even then, still no stun breakers or mass condition removals. Glyphs only get 1 boon at best per cast. Arcane skills, which are very spiky, force you to invest heavily in a non-damage attribute…

The thing that makes people pick cantrips is because it all comes together in a neat little package. You get everything you’d want without having to pick anything you’d rather do without. None of the other skill types, be it glyphs, arcane skills or signets, can make quite such a coherent build.

New SotG, new nerfs. Here is the link if you didn’t watch it:

http://beta.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/396007412
(skip to 34:44)

To sum it up:

- Boon Hate is going to hit eles really hard
- Huge nerfs to Cleansing Water, RTL, Signet of Restoration, Mist Form and other Cantrips
- Slight buffs for some other skills like Glyph of Storms
- Signet buff (which affects all professions)
- No buffs to Conjures, etc.

In general another disappointing SotG for eles. Major nerfs and minor buffs, no intention to make other builds viable and the worst thing is:

The next patch is not going to be a balance patch aka another 2 months without any improvements.

Really disappointing.

You’ve got to be joking. This is such a hard nerf for an already shallow choice of specs for one class. You want to fix ele? Leave it and buff others to compete.

Sadly no buffs for the bad traits this patch… again.

Here are the patch notes if you didn’t read them yet:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-April-30-2013

Like they said in the SotG, huge nerfs and minor buffs. I expected it but I am still disappointed (well, that’s nothing new when it comes to patches)…

The next nerf will most likely hit us in 2 months because the next patch is a “bug fix” patch instead of balance. Enjoy your ele till then.

P.S. Cleansing Water is still one of the best traits and that’s why I will not change the rating.

Sorry for not updating this guide for such a long time. I didn’t really play GW2 too much for several reasons but I am still checking the forums from time to time. Anyway, there is a reason why I finally posted in this thread again. There might be some changes for the ele traits in the near future!

Here is the link to the thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Incoming-ele-trait-changes/first

Let’s hope they are doing a good job!